We are committed to placing students and their success at the heart of our decision-making.  We were inspired by this message, shared by Geoffrey Canada at the AASA Conference on Education, and believe it reaffirms our mission during tough financial times: Click here to Read this message.

 

CCOSA Legislative Goals

2nd Session of the 52nd Legislature 

• CCOSA supports enhanced local control of schools.
• CCOSA supports equitable accountability measures in school choice issues.
• CCOSA supports allowing education employees to retire from their jobs and immediately be rehired by a school district or an approved association. 
• CCOSA supports full funding of the Oklahoma Teacher Retirement System (OTRS) and the allocation of retirement benefits at the same level as other state retirement systems.
• CCOSA supports a fully-funded health insurance program that provides benefits to:
  • Certified and Non-certified employees
  • Family members of school employees
  • Retired educators
• CCOSA supports requiring OSEEGIB to implement health insurance increases or reductions in July rather than in January.
• CCOSA supports legislative efforts to reform the Teacher Due Process Act to provide:
  • Enhanced procedural protections for teachers at the Board Hearing level, and
  • Equal treatment for all certified employees during termination proceedings.
• CCOSA supports reforming the Achieving Classroom Excellence Initiative (ACE) to remove all end of instruction (EOI) exams except for Algebra I and English II, as required by No Child Left Behind.  CCOSA supports replacing EOI exams with ACT and/or WorkKeys exams as the determiner of a student’s readiness to graduate from high school.
• CCOSA supports the creation of a statewide platform capable of providing virtual learning opportunities to students in Oklahoma. CCOSA seeks to provide a system that allows students to take advantage of virtual learning without having to transfer to another school district.
• CCOSA supports using lottery revenue to supplement the appropriation to common education. 
• CCOSA supports making lottery revenue a line item appropriation to common education, and replacing existing lottery funds in the funding formula by 2014.
• CCOSA advocates saving Oklahoma’s remaining American Recovery and Reinvestment Act state stabilization dollars for FY11. 
• CCOSA supports efforts to tap into Oklahoma’s Rainy Day Fund to protect public services offered by all agencies in Oklahoma.
• CCOSA supports efforts to utilize the Qualified School Construction Bond Fund made available to Oklahoma as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 
• CCOSA will advocate for the necessary legislative changes to provide a statewide bond issue for common education to utilize these funds. CCOSA supports allocating a portion of these dollars to the State Public Common School Building Equalization Fund.
• CCOSA supports the elimination of unfunded mandates.
• CCOSA supports removing the requirement of a 60% supermajority when voting on school bond issues.
• CCOSA supports full funding of common education appropriations, to include increased operational costs.
• CCOSA supports legislative efforts to preserve current levels and sources of tax revenue for common education.
• CCOSA supports funding Oklahoma schools at or above the regional per pupil average by 2013.